Research for Gen Surgery Applications

[Pre-Medguy1995]

Hey y'all,

I'm an MS1 at a DO school. I recently got a spot on an Immunology-geared research project at my school. As a fairly small school with not that many research opportunities, I took an open spot that a project happened to have. I've always had an eye for surgery but not one of those "have to have" surgery types. I have a couple of questions:

1) If I do decide to apply for General Surgery, will having research in Immunology hinder me in any way?

2) Is it more important to do general surgery related research or just research in general? (This is a fairly legit project with lots of grants that gets a number of publications so I thought it would be goodR place to start but now I'm worried)

3) How does research in a different field generally impact residency applications? By this, I mean that if I had done research in derm but decide to apply ortho, how would it matter? Or say I do general surgery research, but then decide to apply IM? I tried to ask around but no one seems to have a really sure answer.

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[Winged Scapula]

Hey y'all,

I'm an MS1 at a DO school. I recently got a spot on an Immunology-geared research project at my school. As a fairly small school with not that many research opportunities, I took an open spot that a project happened to have. I've always had an eye for surgery but not one of those "have to have" surgery types. I have a couple of questions:

1) If I do decide to apply for General Surgery, will having research in Immunology hinder me in any way?

No. In fact, you can spin it that Immunology is a common component in Transplant, Colorectal and oncologic research.

2) Is it more important to do general surgery related research or just research in general? (This is a fairly legit project with lots of grants that gets a number of publications so I thought it would be goodR place to start but now I'm worried)

Whats most important is productive research. Of course, if all your research was Ortho (for example), and you applied gen surg, it would like suspicious that you were using GS as a backup, but outside of these sorts of things, it doesn't matter.

3) How does research in a different field generally impact residency applications? By this, I mean that if I had done research in derm but decide to apply ortho, how would it matter? Or say I do general surgery research, but then decide to apply IM? I tried to ask around but no one seems to have a really sure answer.

I'm not sure any of us here can say what GS research would do for an IM application, but as long as you avoid looking like you're using one field as a backup for another, IMHO it's not a problem.

 

[Winged Scapula]

PS...please change your status from Pre-Med

 

[CyrusHabs7695]

PS...please change your status from Pre-Med

Would having pure ortho research make you unable to match into gen surg? Would it make it harder to match into academic gen surgery?(MD school in the south if that matters)

 

[Winged Scapula]

Would having pure ortho research make you unable to match into gen surg? Would it make it harder to match into academic gen surgery?(MD school in the south if that matters)

Well GS is "sensitive" that they are often used as back -up for Ortho and other subs.

So it would definitely look like you are doing that if all your research is Ortho; you'd have to convince faculty that you're dedicated to GS and won't bail if an Ortho position comes up or whine for the entire 5+ years about how you hate GS.

I don't think it matters whether academic or community etc. What matters is how you spin it.

 

[Pre-Medguy1995]

PS...please change your status from Pre-Med

Uhh, how do I do that? XD

 

[Winged Scapula]

Uhh, how do I do that? XD

Under your profile page

 

[Moose A Moose]

1) It will not hinder you, but you’ll be asked to explain why you didn’t seek out specialty-specific research opportunities.

2) If you want gen surg, GS specific research will be the most beneficial to your CV.

3) Research in different specialities will not be looked down upon unless it’s obvious there are alterior motives, ie “back-up plan”.

 

[Pre-Medguy1995]

Under your profile page

Got it, thanks!!